Iniewski - perhaps a good approach is to look at the track record of different forecasters and their postmortem analysis of difference with actual.
For 2012 there was near consensus in January about 7% growth - we ended at 0%
I would give a high mark to IC Insights forecasts. They are strongly based on detailed analyses of economic drivers and what I like they do are their postmortem analyses. Explaining what exactly has changed where and how much it contributed to discrepancy. I find this a high quality and integrity approach.
Re Databeans - they are certainly well respected researchers, eg., in Analog. What I find somewhat lacking are their definitions of what makes any vendor primarily an Analog IC vendor - hence their Analog vendor ranking is somewhat misleading/confusing. But - that is one person opinion

Hi Peter – the latest run of the Cowan LRA foreasting model, which is based on the WSTS’s November HBR sales numbers published on Jan 7th, 2013, yielded the following sales and yr-o-yr sales growth numbers for 2012 and 2013: $292.992 billion (-2.2 percent) and $309.244 billion (+5.5 percent), respectively. Therefore, the Cowan LRA Model’s sales growth expectation for 2013 is 1.6 percentage points lower than Databean's forecast of plus 7.1 percent.
Note that 2012's sales and sales growth numbers between our two forecast expectations are in excellent agreement
Note that the WSTS will publish the final (actual) global semiconductor sales result for 2012 at the end of the first week in February. Therefore, stay tuned for my latest 2013's forecast numbers following the posting of the December HBR (Historical Billings Report).
Regards, Mike Cowan (Independent semi industry market watcher and developer of the Cowan LRA Model for forecasting global semi sales).

In conjunction with unveiling of EE Times’ Silicon 60 list, journalist & Silicon 60 researcher Peter Clarke hosts a conversation on startups in the electronics industry. One of Silicon Valley's great contributions to the world has been the demonstration of how the application of entrepreneurship and venture capital to electronics and semiconductor hardware can create wealth with developments in semiconductors, displays, design automation, MEMS and across the breadth of hardware developments. But in recent years concerns have been raised that traditional venture capital has turned its back on hardware-related startups in favor of software and Internet applications and services. Panelists from incubators join Peter Clarke in debate.